Sable Monroe

I was sixteen when the offer came.

I was getting my hair braided at a friend’s house. Her family was Haitian. The whole place felt temporary because they were in the middle of moving. Boxes stacked along the walls. Furniture half-wrapped. People walking in and out carrying things. It took longer than I expected, and the later it got, the more nervous I felt about going home.

You never knew what you were walking into.

Sometimes it was quiet. Sometimes it wasn’t.

There was a man there helping them move. He said he didn’t live far from where I lived. When it was time for me to go, he offered to drive me home. I didn’t think much of it. He seemed normal enough. I got in the car.

On the way, I started talking. I don’t even know why I told him anything. Maybe because he wasn’t yelling. Maybe because he wasn’t involved. Maybe because I didn’t want to go back yet. I told him how things were at home. The arguments. The screaming. The fear of not knowing what version of the house I would walk into.

He listened.

He pulled into a Dunkin’ Donuts to get coffee and asked if I wanted anything. I said sure. We sat there for a minute.

Then he asked how old I was.

I said sixteen.

He nodded and said, “That’s not too young.”

Then he said I didn’t have to go back home if I didn’t want to.

He said he could get me an apartment. He’d pay the rent. I could still go to school. I’d just have to get on birth control.

He said I didn’t have to answer right then. He told me to think about it. He wrote his name and number on a piece of paper and handed it to me.

I held it the whole ride home.

I didn’t have a job yet. I didn’t have my papers. If I moved into an apartment at sixteen, I couldn’t be on the lease. The apartment wouldn’t be mine. The money wouldn’t be mine. If he got angry, if he changed his mind, if I wanted to leave, I’d have nowhere to go.

Whoever feeds you can starve you.

And I didn’t want to trade one cage for another.

When I got home, I tore the paper into small pieces and threw it away.

Two more years.

If this resonated with you, you can follow along. I write about the parts people don’t usually say out loud.